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Old Posted Nov 19, 2010, 8:30 PM
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GaylordWilshire GaylordWilshire is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: NYC
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The "Broderick Crawford Buick"




Quote:
Originally Posted by malumot View Post

Other pluses: All that beautiful mid- and late-50s Detroit iron, fedoras, and Broderick Crawford, who is a piece of work. Downside: many of the stories are insipid and the acting horrible.








Being interested in cars all my life, as well as in vintage Los Angeles, I've always noticed that in almost every photo of the city involving vehicles, from late 1954 and continuing for many years, there is always at least one (and often more than one) '55 Buick in the shot. This isn't really so surprising since Buick, despite notoriously weak brakes, was the third most popular make in '55 after Chevy and Ford. As for Detroit iron in Highway Patrol, one of the stars of the early seasons was Dan Matthews's own '55 Buick. The actual CHP ordered 270 '55s of a model not for sale at your local Buick dealer. The 2-door post sedan was available to the public only in the entry-level Special series and only with the 188-horsepower (264 cubic-inch) V8. Buick offered to make a special Special by installing the 2-door sedan body on the Century chassis, which included the bigger 236hp (322ci) V8 that was standard on the Century, Super and Roadmaster. By offering such a unique hotrod and by underbidding other manufacturers, Buick won the contract. (Half the order had three-on-the-tree, the other half Dynaflow transmissions.) Buick badged these hybrid models as Centurys, and even included the additional "Ventiport" of the upper-series Buicks on each front fender to signal to potential highway robbers that extra power was under the hood.

Source of all photos above: http://www.highwaypatroltv.com
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